The invention relates to a method of testing an electronics product, the method comprising placing the product on a product palette, moving the product palette and the product on it along a production line to a work-station on the production line for performing operations on the product.
The invention also relates to a product palette for carrying an electronics product on a production line for electronics products.
The second embodiment of the invention relates to a method of subjecting an electronics product to operations.
The product can be e.g. a finished device, a semi-finished product or a circuit board provided with components and wirings. The product may be e.g. a mobile phone to be tested with or without the battery or a circuit board of a mobile phone with components and wirings. It is clear that the product to be tested can also be some other product.
Prior art methods and solutions for testing electronics products, such as mobile phones, comprise moving of the product to be tested on a product base, i.e. a palette, along a testing line via one or more test stations. Testing is performed at the test stations and the palette functions as a base along which the product is moved to the test station and away from the test station. The prior art solutions often employ an arrangement in which a rack provided with several expensive measuring devices is placed in the test station or attached to it. The rack also comprises test devices which perform some relatively simple test operations.
The prior art solutions have several disadvantages, which are particularly related to the fact that the actual testing period of the product is short compared to the time the product spends on the testing line. The testing period of the product can be only 20% of the total period the product spends on the testing line because most of the time the product only lies on the palette as the palette moves towards a test station or away from the test station. The palette may also be stationary on the testing line. Another problem is that testing is not very efficient because both complex and simple test devices perform their test operations one at a time, i.e. one after the other. Since several aspects of the product cannot be tested at the same time, the other test devices are inutile as one test device included in the same entity performs testing. To keep the capacity of the production line high, it has been necessary to increase the number of test stations. Naturally each test station must have been provided with a separate rack of testing devices. The price of test devices provided in a test rack serving one test station may amount to USD 200,000. Increase of the number of test stations and test devices also requires more floor area, which adds the costs and makes it more difficult to change the layout of the apparatuses at a production facility.
In prior art solutions related to the second embodiment of the invention, transmission of data on operating settings to the product, e.g. transmission of software to a mobile phone, has been implemented by connecting the phone directly to a PC, for example, from which the software of the phone has been transmitted to the phone. This step requires unnecessary moving of the product and connection of the phone to a separate device, e.g. to a PC. Furthermore, the above-mentioned underutilization of time also constitutes a problem.